come to-morrow?'

'Any time--any time,' he said. 'She is always at home, and she has
been much better since we came here. We were too much in the town at
Lauriston.'

Mr. Dusautoy, having a year ago come out of the diocese where had
been Albinia's home, they had many common friends, and plunged into
'ecclesiastical intelligence,' with a mutual understanding of the
topics most often under discussion, that made Albinia quite in her
element. 'A great Newfoundland dog of a man in size, and
countenance, and kindness,' thought she. 'If his wife be worthy of
him, I shall reck little of all the rest.'

Her tread the gayer for this resumption of old habits, she proceeded
to Mrs. Meadows', where the sensation created by her poor little
basket justified Lucy's remonstrance. There were regrets, and
assurances that the girl could have come in a moment, and that she
need not have troubled herself, and her laughing declarations that it
was no trouble were disregarded, except that the old lady said, in
gentle excuse to her daughter, that Mrs. Kendal had always lived in
the country, where people could do as they pleased.

'I mean to do as I please here,' said Albinia, laughing; but the
speech was received with silent discomfiture that made her heartily
regret it. She disdained to explain it away; she was beginning to
hold Mrs. and Miss Meadows too cheap to think it worth while.

'Well,' said Mrs. Meadows, as if yielding up the subject, 'things may
be different from what they were in my time.'